Legitimacy Theory and its Relationship to CSR Disclosures : A Literature Review

To various researchers from the arena of business and economics, the idea of gaining ʻorganizational legitimacyʼ triggers firms to publish Corporate Social Reporting (CSR). This paper offers a literature review-based analysis of the said position of the researchers. It is found that majority of the organizations pursue only symbolic management of their legitimacy and publish fabricated CSRs. However, there are also organizations having ʻtrue sustainabilityʼ approach, that offer transparent information and adopt substantive management of their legitimacy. Therefore, sweeping conclusions derived from legitimacy theory only, would not be a wise one; since, legitimacy theory has multiple assumptions that are not justified in all contexts. Future research scopes are available: in understanding the sensitivity of a specific type of stakeholder to various genres of legitimacy-based CSRs, in figuring up the dynamics of mangersʼ and stakeholdersʼ personas that impact the legitimacy assumptions and in developing an objective measurement procedure to understand the relationship between legitimacy and CSR. Academics, researchers and report preparers may draw a conceptual framework in figuring up the relationship of legitimacy and CSR from this paper.